


Not All Questions Should Be Asked

by Ranowa



Series: Harry Potter AU [8]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Crack, Gen, Metafiction, Out of Character, Roy tries to at least, Somewhat anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-20
Updated: 2019-03-20
Packaged: 2019-11-26 03:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18175421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Ed asks a question that really didn't need to be asked in the first place, and Roy channels the cries of millions in distress back at him.





	Not All Questions Should Be Asked

**Author's Note:**

> Just when I think I've escaped, it pulls me right back in...
> 
> Anywho. Heed the tags. Do not take this all that seriously. Also, since this'll probably be wildly bewildering to you if you're not in the know, it is in reference to... That JKRowling Tweet. 
> 
> *You know the one.*
> 
> And if you don't, no worries- I'll quote it at the end for you, so as to not ruin the surprise :)
> 
> Enjoy! ^_^

"Al?"

The Hufflepuff, still all but neck-deep in his nest of piles of books from the library, made little more than a gentle _hmming_ noise, his gaze remaining intently focused downwards on the thick Potions text resting in his lap. "Yes, Brother?"

"You know what I just realized?"

"Yes, Brother?"

"The Chamber of Secrets," Ed said flatly, spreading his hands. "How the fuck did it end up there?"

Al, midway through another page turn, barely even stiffened, mouth twitching into another slim smile- which was yet another reason why he was the best brother in the world. He was one of the only people in this school he could have a simple conversation like this with without being stared at like he was insane. Al was the only one who could follow his train of thought, and he loved him for it.

"I'm... sorry, Ed?"

"The Chamber of Secrets," he said again, punching down at his own History of Magic textbook. "That entrance was in the girl's bathroom, yeah?"

Al turned another page in his textbook only to bookmark it with his homework, smiling good-naturedly again as he tossed the book shut, seeming settling himself in for the long discussion Ed could already feel it shaping to be. "Yes, it was. And?"

"And it doesn't make any _sense,_ that's what. First of all it's a fucking girl's bathroom- not the kind of place _I'd_ put my dark underground lair of killer snakes, at least-"

Mustang snickered slightly behind him, a quiet and smug chuckle that pulsed a vein in Ed's forehead and knotted an angry ball right in his stomach. He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, back still to his professor, because in that smug chuckle, he'd _heard_ well and good the bastard's amusement of the idea of him having a dark lair, could almost hear the smug words themselves, and for a moment, considering chucking a textbook at his chair. Intruding in on a private conversation like that... being smug...

_Bastard..._

_"Anyway,_ " he went on with a huff. "More _importantly..._ that bathroom looks really modern. I mean, it's a fucking trash heap, with Mrytle always flooding it, but it had to have been outfitted sometime in the last century, right?"

Al's eyes started to brighten, the hint of a conundrum or puzzling quandary tugging at his own interest far more than any assignment of Slughorn's, Ed knew, ever could. "That's true," he said, reaching a hand towards a history textbook for himself. "Modern plumbing like that only started coming around in the 1800s, I think. Whereas Hogwarts was founded in 990! I... _suppose_ wizards could've invented it earlier than Muggles, but-"

" _Please,"_ Ed snorted, pushing his own book away with another laugh. He reached for his quill to wave it in the air, and only wondered for maybe half a second if it, too, would make a good projectile for Mustang's desk chair. "Wizards haven't even got around to inventing a pen yet. Or _paper!_ I mean, look at this!" He grabbed for his all but abandoned Transfiguration essay, waving the crinkly, rough parchment in the air, the serious of cracks it made a noisy cascade around them that was as loud as it was embarrassing. For the wizards, that was. "Without Muggles to steal from, wizards would probably still be chilling in stone castles and wearing dresses and sending letters instead of making phone calls, throwing themselves into fireplaces instead of starting a damn car. Oh... _wait..."_

Behind him, Mustang made a muffled little sound again, half a chuckle, half a gasp, like what he wanted to say had caught in his throat and turned into a choked _mmph_ instead. This time, Ed simply grinned to himself while Al buried his now red face against his knees, because Ed knew he'd won this round- but all too soon, was back to the real question at hand.

"I don't really know, though," he said, halfway to himself, almost, casting a glance about all the books before him as if they might've had the answer. "I mean, no way wizards invented modern plumbing a thousand bloody years before we did. Hmm... I wonder what they even did before then to begin with."

"What do you mean?"

"You know... for- _that,"_ he said, a faint warm flush rising to his face as he was unable to articulate it in any way but simple an awkward wave of his hands downward. "I guess at Hogwarts specifically. Muggle kings who lived in castles like this had hoards of servants to clean up after them, but Hogwarts is a little different..." And now they'd somehow gotten wildly off track, but Ed just couldn't help himself. Whenever he stumbled upon a question he couldn't quite puzzle out, he couldn't let it go... like a dog with a bone, Mustang liked to say- to Ed's intense displeasure.

But now, as inane and dumb and hugely less interesting than the Chamber of Secrets problem as this whole question was, he couldn't just stop thinking about it. How _had_ old wizards at Hogwarts done it?

"Maybe..." Al ventured slowly, "maybe, it wasn't that much a problem for wizards, Brother? I mean, for Muggles, it was a serious sanitation issue that they had to have ways to address. But wizards can vanish anything. It wouldn't have really been a health issue for them."

"Hey, that's true... I guess it really wouldn't have mattered all that much to them." Ed paused, brow furrowing as he rested his chin down on his knee, trying to think. "What are you getting at, then? That they just... went wherever? Just- on the floor whenever, and then, _poof?"_

Al made a face, a little grimace and scrunched nose of discomfort. Which, to be fair, Ed pretty much agreed with. He made an uncomfortable smile back to him, swiftly deciding to change the subject back to the Chamber of Secrets, infinitely cooler and infinitely less _weird-_

Only to be interrupted by the solid slam of a textbook against a desk behind him, and one solid, heavy _whuff_ of air.

Then:

_"Excuse me?"_

Ed stiffened, hands jerking still with mild surprise. Oh, so _now_ their professor decided to speak up with something more than not-so-innocent coughs and chuckles? Right. Rolling his eyes, both to Al and to himself, Ed looked up, gingerly shifting about in the maze of books to turn to him- except, Mustang had already beaten him to it.

Their professor was on his feet, whirled around with his mouth hanging open and his face frozen, aghast as if he'd just been slapped or perhaps even punched. He gazed on back down them with huge, shocked, almost _betrayed_ eyes, and for a long, thick pause mired with disbelief, he simply stood there, stared, and gaped. For several still heartbeats, he seemed too stunned to speak at all.

 _"Excuse me?"_ he finally wheezed for the second time, voice dripping with the horror of it, so abject and undeniable it almost would've been funny, if not for the truly horrified look on his face to go with it. _"Did you just- are you- suggesting..."_

Ed, now utterly stunned and lost himself, blinked back at Al. His brother, quite clearly just as lost as he was, blinked uncertainly back. Mustang, meanwhile, remained looming up above them, slowly steaming, stuttering, and spluttering like a broken clock or a tea kettle left whistling for too long.

And then, the explosion happened.

 _"_ Edward Elric, that is the most patently ridiculous thing I have heard in my entire life! How could you sit there, with that brilliant brain of yours, and spout out something so devoid of the slightest sense of logic and reason?!"

"That's- well, first of all, bastard, wizards aren't all that _logical-"_

" _So?!_ We may not be perfect, but that does not mean we are _barbarians,_ Edward! I- my _God!"_ Throwing his hands up in the air, the gobsmacked professor first turned to pace, then just shook his head so vehemently it brushed his neat hair into disarray, rubbing his hands over his reddening face in a display of abject misery and torment. "That is _disgusting!_ What is wrong with you?! What could've possibly possessed you to say such a thing?! Plumbing has existed for _thousands of years,_ since the dawn of advanced civilization itself- waste was not piling up in every corner of the castle before the 1800s, you _daft child_ , I refuse to believe someone as smart as you didn't know that! Do you think professors simply relieved themselves in front of classrooms full of children?! You- _animals_ are more hygienic than that, Edward! _Actual_ barbarians! Do you think Merlin himself was dumber than a caveman or a monkey?! I am _absolutely disgusted!"_

Their professor paced for several moments more, panting and shaking his head like a caged animal only to whirl back around on them at last, throwing his hands up in the air in a gesture of overwhelming disgust and defeat. "Twenty points from Ravenclaw for even entertaining what is perhaps the grossest suggestion I have heard in a decade straight of teaching teenage children! What is _wrong_ with you?! I'd tell you to wash your mouth out with soap, but based off what just came out of it, you'd probably die of the shock to learn wizards used it all! Disgusting, Edward- _disgusting!_ "

He turned back and forth again, shaking his head and wild-eyed, then with one last despairing moan plodded straight for the door instead, stepping straight on textbooks and parchment without heed, creating a wreck in his own office and seemingly without a care left in the world for it. "You have ruined my evening, my week, and, I believe, my entire childhood with that comment," he proclaimed, hands raking tremblingly through his hair again. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go and vomit, now."

That said, he wrenched the door open, stormed straight outside in a flurry of billowing robes and all but palpable, stricken rage, then slammed it shut behind him.

Leaving Ed and Al to sit wordlessly back in the newly created mess and stare, dumbfounded, after him.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The tweet in question, that inspired this disaster:
> 
> Hogwarts didn't always have bathrooms. Before adopting Muggle plumbing methods in the eighteenth century, witches and wizards simply relieved themselves wherever they stood, and vanished the evidence. #NationalTriviaDay
> 
> farewell, my childhood


End file.
